Once
by Kelly of the midnight dawn
Summary: Once is enough, For somethings, once can be too much. EO later on. STORY DISCONTINUED
1. Chapter 1: To Good to be true

Once

Disclaimer: Not mine.

"Back off!" she screams at her date as he tries to force his way into her apartment.

"C'mon babe," he says, in a voice too slurred with alcohol to sound sexy.

"No!" she screams again as she attempts to slam the door. But it is too late, he has already made it inside.

"I'll show you a good time," he says, pinning her against the wall.

Those were the very words he had spoken when he had asked her out but then they hadn't sounded as sinister as they do now.

"Get out!" she screams as she attempts to throw a decent punch at his face.

She hits him in the nose and this only serves to infuriate him "I'll show you your place bitch!" he shouts as he throws her to the floor.

As she attempts to crawl away from him she wonders if her neighbors will call the police. They probably won't she decides, they know she's a cop and they all hold her to a higher standard of capability then most women. She reaches for her cell phone, only to have it smacked out of her hand by the man who earlier that evening had been her date.

Earlier that day

"No comment," she said to the crush of reporters outside the precinct. They had just arrested Trent Powers, an affluent business man. They had proof that he had raped and murdered a woman named Valerie Otis. The case was a high profile one and the reporters were all over it.

In the crowd, a familiar voice grabbed her attention "Olivia!" the voice called. She turned towards its source only to turn back in discussed. The voice belonged to none other then Nick Ganzner.

"Olivia!" Ganzner called again as he pushed through the throng towards her.

"What do you want?" she asked harshly. She looked around for a graceful way out of her unfortunate situation. She spotted Elliot but he was caught up with a female reporter who just wouldn't stop bugging him.

"Can you give me an inside scoop?" Ganzner asked, stepping closer to her.

As she looked at the man who six years earlier had betrayed her trust, made her feel violated, used her for the sole purpose of furthering his own career she felt the overwhelming urge to kick him in the balls. She fought it back with all that she was, clenching her teeth she tried to turn away.

Ganzner grabbed her arm tightly "C'mon Olivia, there's got to be something you can tell me?"

"Let me go," she said in a dangerously low voice. He was much stronger than she remembered.

"Olivia," Ganzner whispered as he attempted to kiss her.

"Let me go!" she nearly shrieked.

Elliot's head snapped towards the sound of his partner's voice. He tried to get away from the annoyingly perky reporter but she wouldn't let him pass.

"Back off!" Olivia breathed a sigh of relief as Ganzner was pulled off of her "You shouldn't treat people like that Nick," Olivia's mysterious liberator was saying "Go crawl back into the hole you came from."

The man gave Ganzner a shove in the other direction and turned to Olivia "Are you alright Detective?"

"Yeah," she smiled at him "Thanks, that guy just doesn't give up easy."

"I'm Russell Lowry, I work with that ass. Sorry about his behavior," Russell extended his hand to Olivia.

"I'm Olivia," Olivia answered, taken aback by his brilliant green eyes and chiseled features.

"Nice to meet you Olivia," Russell said, still smiling. Olivia couldn't help but smile back at him. There was just something captivating about the man.

Elliot finally escaped from the perky reporter and made it to Olivia's side "You okay?" he asked her.

She snapped out of her trance "Um… yeah, umm Russell Lowry this is my partner Elliot," she said, feeling just a little bit embarrassed.

"Nice to meet you," Elliot said to Russell, then turning to Olivia "Liv, we should get inside and finish the paper work on this case."

She nodded and turned to follow Elliot inside the precinct. She turned around once more before going inside "Bye Russell, it was nice meeting you."

She couldn't help smiling as she worked on the usually frustrating paperwork.

"Earth to Olivia," Elliot called to her.

"Aha," she answered, still sounding as if she was in another world.

"Are you alright?" he asked her.

"Yeah, why?" she answered, coming fully back to herself.

"You've had a goofy look on your face since… since… well since you met that Russell guy," Elliot said. He didn't know why he was bothered that Olivia seemed so gaga over this guy but he was. Something about Russell hadn't sat right with Elliot.

"I don't know what it is about him," Olivia said dreamily "he was just so… so… it doesn't matter," she stopped her train of thought before she went any further down a road that she knew only lead to pain "Its not like I'll ever see him again anyway," she said in a slightly wistful tone.

But she was wrong. When she and Elliot parted company at 7:30 that night after finishing the paperwork on the Powers case, there he was, standing outside the precinct, waiting for her.

"Hello again," she said, smiling.

"Good evening Detective Olivia," he said, taking a step towards her and smiling.

It was at that point that Olivia realized that she had neglected to tell him her last name "Its Benson actually," she said, suppressing a giggle.

"Well then Detective Benson," Russell smiled at her "Have you had dinner yet?"

"Wow," Olivia said "you don't waste any time, do you?"

"I've been told that I'm direct," Russell said, never ceasing his charming smile.

"Did you wait here all afternoon for me?" she asked, not knowing whether to be flattered or disturbed.

"Yeah," Russell answered, looking sheepishly at his shoes.

Somehow Olivia found his sheepishness only more endearing "What do you want?" she asked, smiling sweetly at him.

"Why," he began, taking a deep bow "Only the pleasure of taking the stunningly beautiful Detective Olivia out to dinner."

She tried to keep from giggling again and failed miserably "Its Detective Benson," she had no idea why it was that she was flurting with this man but it felt good. For the first time in a long time, she felt a warm sensation of happiness glowing inside her.

"My apologies Detective Benson," Russell said bowing again "So what do you say?"

"I think you're very charming," she began.

"I sense a 'but' coming," Russell said, sounding a little disappointed "I'll show you a good time."

She looked him up and down "I don't know…" she told him, uncertainly.

"When was the last time you had a night out?" Russell asked her.

Olivia thought about it, she really couldn't remember "I have work in the morning," she voiced her last protest to him.

"Sounds like you're making excuses detective," Russell looked at her pleadingly.

"Okay," she finally conceded and arm in arm the two walked off to find someplace to have dinner.

And that's how she got to this point. She struggles against him but he overpowers her far to easily. She clenches her eyes shut and tries to hold back the tears. She's been an SVU detective for eight years. She should have known better, she should have been more aware, she should have left him the second that he started to exhibit signs of intoxication, she should have called him a cab at the restaurant instead of just leaving him there, she should have been aware that he was following her home. She shouldn't have let herself be so easily charmed by this man, this wolf in sheep's clothing. She's let a reporter get the best of her once before. She thought once was more than enough.

She can't reach her gun, she can't reach her phone, she can't fight him off, she can't hold back the tears anymore as she surrenders to the inevitable.

TBC

A/N: This is what happens when I have writers block. I start another story. I would appreciate some feedback on this. Please review.


	2. Chapter 2: Life Line

Once

Disclaimer: Not mine.

She is lying alone. She is cold, naked. He has gone. He took what he wanted from her and left. He left her lying in a pool of her own blood. She can't move. All she knows is pain. All she feels is shame. It hurts. It hurts to be here, in her apartment alone like this.

The phone, she needs to reach the phone, to call for help. She tries to move but the pain is too much. She tries to speak, to scream for help but she cannot find her voice. So she just lies there, in her pain, hoping that someone will find her soon, because right now that is all she can do.

Waiting, that's what she's been reduced to. Waiting for someone to find her and save her. For seven years of speaking for victims, for helping them, listening to them, seven years of putting away the men who do these horrible things, it has come to this. She is a victim, a bloody and battered victim and she needs help but all she can do is wait for a rescuer.

Elliot walks into the squad room. He is late and surprised when he doesn't see his partner. He spots Munch at the coffee maker and moves quickly to avoid a potential disaster.

"Have you seen Olivia?" he asks as he steps between Munch and the machine, breathing a sigh of relief when he sees that Munch hasn't started making coffee yet.

"No I haven't," Munch says as he tries to get past Elliot to reclaim the coffee machine.

"That's strange," Elliot says and forgetting about keeping Munch away from the coffee machine, he heads for Cragen's office.

"Hey Captain," he says, poking his head in the door of the office "Is Olivia here yet?"

Cragen looks up and scratches his head "I haven't seen her and she hasn't called in sick. I was just about to call her apartment."

"I'll do it," Elliot jumps on the chance to bug his partner. He assumes that she has over slept. The two of them had been working many sleepless nights on the Powers case.

He pulls out his cell phone and dials her home number. One ring nothing, two rings he expects her to pick up any minute, three rings she still isn't answering, four rings and the answering machine picks up.

"Hey Liv," he begins to leave a message.

Her phone is ringing and she knows she has to reach it. One ring she tries to move towards the end table, two rings the pain is so bad but she has to get there, three rings the blood is coming faster because she's moving, four rings she can't do it, she can't reach the phone.

The answering machine picks up "Hey Liv," its Elliot. Salvation is just three feet away but she can't move, she has no energy left "Are you sleeping?" he asks in a teasing tone. If he only knew she thinks his tone would be very different "Anyway just wondering why you're not at work. I'll try your cell. Bye."

Her cell phone, maybe she can reach it. Her head is beginning to cloud due to the blood loss. It begins to ring 'Reach it! Answer it!' her head screams at her but her cell phone is in the opposite direction from the end table. She tries to get there, she makes her best effort, her hand closes over the phone.

The pain and blood loss is overwhelming and she can't stay conscious any longer. The cloudiness over takes her, she's losing the battle. Her grip on consciousness is slipping fast. She knows that she has to answer the phone.

"Elliot," she manages a small whisper, she isn't even sure that he's heard her when she can no longer maintain consciousness. She blacks out.

He hears the phone pick up. He hears something, he's positive its her, he'd recognize that voice anywhere but it is so weak, so uncharacteristic of her. He's almost sure that she has said his name but now there is only silence on the other end save the sounds of steady but haggard breathing.

"Olivia?" he says into the phone. His voice isn't raised but by his tone it is evident that he is very worried.

No answer.

"Captain," he says over his shoulder as he is leaving "I'm going to Liv's apartment! Something's wrong!"

He makes the trip from the precinct to her apartment building in all of five minutes. He parks his car in the nearest available place and starts walking towards the building when something in an alley catches his attention. As he moves closer to the something he can see that it is a man. Some lousy drunk bum he thinks. He's got more important things to do right now.

He uses his badge to gain entrance to the building and hurries upstairs to her apartment. Her door is open just a crack and that alone chills him to the bone. He opens the door the rest of the way and enters her apartment, afraid of what he will find.

He hears a moan and beyond the couch he sees her "Oh God," he says as the breath is robbed from his body. He kneels beside her as he reaches for his phone. He finds that he can barely get the words out as he tells the operator his badge number and location and asks for an ambulance.

She hears a voice. Her head is swimming in a place somewhere between conscious and comatose. She hears him speaking to her. She's in so much pain but the sound of his voice is somehow soothing to her.

"Olivia," he whispers "It's gonna be okay. Help's coming," he moves to brush a few strands of hair from her face and she pulls away.

"No," she says quietly "Please don't," tears start to form in her half opened eyes.

"It's okay Liv," he says softly, his voice full of gentleness "It's just me. It's just Elliot. It's okay."

Somehow the message gets through and she calms down. She allows him to touch her face and brush the hair from it.

Sirens can be heard in the distance and Elliot grips her hand "Help is almost here. Hang on."

She squeezes his hand tightly "Don't go," she pleads.

"I won't," he tells her.

Paramedics fill the room and begin to assess Olivia's injuries. Somehow through it all Elliot manages to stay by her side, holding her hand. He holds her hand as they put her on the stretcher and he walks beside it as they make there way out of the building. He climbs into the ambulance beside the stretcher and they ride to the hospital.

Only when they reach the hospital and she is wheeled into the ER, only then is he forced to release her hand.

"Elliot," she moans as they part.

"It's okay," he tells her as his eyes fill with tears "I'll see you later."

He takes a seat in the waiting room. He feels like crying. How could he have let this happen? He isn't even sure what has happened but he can guess. He is angry, he wants to hurt the person who did this to her.

His cell phone rings. He looks at the caller ID, its Cragen. Elliot sighs before flipping the phone open "Stabler," he answers half heartedly.

"Elliot," Cragen says, sensing the other man's pain "What happened?"

Elliot fights the quaver in his voice as he explains what he has discovered.

Cragen enters the waiting room. He spots Elliot speaking to a doctor and hurries over to them.

"How is she?" he asks, out of breath.

Elliot looks somberly at his Captain "The doctor says that she'll recover," is all he says before his voice is completely choked up.

Cragen turns to the doctor to obtain the details but he isn't sure he wants them "What happened to her?" he asks.

The doctor looks uncomfortable. This is a doctor that Olivia has worked with before on several cases and it is obvious to both Elliot and Cragen that this man does not like having to say what has happened "She was raped."

TBC

A/N: I thought I would leave most of the details of her injuries out until the next couple of chapters. The picture will gradually paint itself. I need reviewss please?


	3. Chapter 3: It Should Never Be Her

Once

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Cragen actually feels like he's going to vomit. He looks at Elliot and can tell that Elliot feels the overwhelming urge as well.

"Luckily," the doctor is saying "None of the stab wounds or the lacerations were deep enough to cause any permanent damage other than the blood loss."

Elliot hears the words but he doesn't think that there is anything lucky about the situation. Everything in him is boiling over, the rage will consume him if he doesn't see her soon. He can't believe that he has let this happen. He thinks about the message that he has left on her machine and his heart gives a regretful twinge. All he wanted to do was have a little fun at her expense because that is just what they do, because that is what they have always done, because he thought that today would be the same as any other day. But it's not the same. Olivia's been raped, raped a horrible thing, one that he had hoped, preyed would never happen to her. All the victims they've seen beaten, mutilated, broken he'd always hoped that the victims would never be anyone so close to him and now the victim is Olivia, his partner, his friend. He finds himself shaking with anger and sadness.

"Can we see her?" Cragen asks the doctor.

"One at a time," the doctor informs him "she's still very week. We're still giving her blood transfusions and until we've replaced all the blood she lost, she will be very weak."

Cragen turns to Elliot "You go first. I'll wait out here until you're done."

Elliot nods his silent thanks to the captain and follows the doctor back to Olivia's room.

She's lying in a hospital bed, an IV delivers the units of blood into her right arm. She stares at the ceiling. She isn't looking forward to giving her statement. She doesn't want to admit that she let her guard down as far as she had.

IN addition to the anxiety, the humiliation, the pain of just dealing with the immediate truth, there is something else. The morning after pill, does she take it or does she leave the decision up to fate.

She isn't allowed much time to think about this however because she hears the door open. Momentarily she cringes, an after affect of the attack, she tells herself but she still can't relax, she is way too vulnerable right now.

Her fears are put to rest immediately when she hears his voice "Olivia," it's Elliot. He is speaking softly to her as he sits beside her bed.

She turns her head slightly to face him "Hi," she says, trying to sound happy but she doesn't sound happy, she knows this, he knows it too and he knows why. He doesn't blame her for not being able to sound happy, not being able to smile.

"How are you?" he asks, reaching out tentatively towards her.

She offers him her hand and lets her eyes drift closed "It hurts," two small words but they convey so much.

"I know," he says. He doesn't want to push her but he wants to know the facts, he wants to get to work right away on this case. He wants to but in this moment, in this room, with her he can't. Someone else will have to ask her the questions, take her statement because he knows that he can't handle it.

"Elliot," she says softly, her eyes staring at the ceiling.

"Yes?" he asks, he is ready to do anything, say anything, give her anything that will make her pain go away. To see her as she is now, lying in a hospital bed, a broken woman, he would rip his soul from his own body and give it to her if it would restore her to the person she was only the day before. If he can give her back any sense of safety, he will.

She doesn't want to be broken in front of him, she doesn't want to seem week but at this moment she is. She won't ask him for anything, she knows nothing will save her now. All she will do is offer him the chance to pursue justice. The two of them are so in tune with each other that she won't need to say much, the name, all she needs to give him is the name and the rest will fall into place "Russell."

He doesn't need to ask, he understands the meaning behind the name. What he doesn't understand is why she isn't saying more, why she isn't asking for a shoulder to cry on. He decides not to push her, when she's ready, she'll come to him.

"Olivia," he says, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb "The captain is here. He wants to see you. Is that okay?"

She looks him directly in the eye, something she hasn't done since his arrival. She wants to say no, she doesn't want anyone else to see her like this but she knows that nothing is as bad as being this vulnerable in front of Elliot, so she nods "Are you leaving?" she asks. She may not like being vulnerable in front of him but oddly something inside her doesn't want him to leave her.

"I have to get back to work," he says softly.

"I'm sorry," she says, her gaze returning to the ceiling.

"Don't be," he tells her firmly. She has nothing to be sorry for, he knows that she feels like she has the entire world to apologize for sometimes but really she owes no one an apology today.

He stands to leave but her grip on his hand tightens "You'll come back?" she asks in a voice so small that he can't believe that this is her.

"Of course I will," he tells her. He leaves the room and starts walking back out to tell Cragen that its his turn. Some where between her hospital room and the waiting room, the tears start to fall and he frantically tries to stop them. Men don't sob, its something that his father beat into him as a child but seeing her like that, he just can't help it.

He's still crying when he reaches the waiting room and Cragen spots him "Elliot," the captain says softly, laying a hand on the other man's shoulder.

"It's just," Elliot whispers "Its her captain. It shouldn't be her."

Cragen nods, somehow the old mantra of 'We don't get to pick the vic' has lost all meaning in the past hour for him and he knows that if he were to say it now, it would most likely earn him a punch in the face "I know," Cragen says because he feels the same way that Elliot does, it should never be her. It should never be anyone but it shouldn't be her. The fact that its her makes it so much harder.

"I… um I have to get back to the station," Elliot says turning to leave.

"Elliot," Cragen calls after him.

"Yeah," Elliot turns back to his captain.

Cragen's next words are spoken for his own benefit as well as for Elliot's "Don't do anything stupid," Cragen knows that if given the chance at the guy, he too would like to take a crack at him.

Elliot nods and the two men part company. Both of them know that in spite of Cragen's warning, Elliot will act with the instincts of a friend and not a cop today.

TBC

A/N: I think this chapter totally sucked. I'm not at the top of my game and I think that this doesn't really hold together well. I would appreciate some feed back to either confirm my fears or lay them to rest. Thank you.


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